


Not A Soul

by incandescentshadows



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: But also, Fighting Depression, Fix-It, I fixed it, M/M, but here, just to show the writers that it would only take 3.5 minutes of screen time, season 4 fix-it, to accomplish what they wanted, tw depression, what they did was bullshit, without destroying the entire series, wrote this as a script first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 14:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incandescentshadows/pseuds/incandescentshadows
Summary: Quentin has gone through so much to get here, to finally reach his heroic end, but a question is still weighing on his mind. If he's thinking it, if he's wondering about the risk that this was a suicide, then he's not done fighting. He's going back, no matter what it takes.





	Not A Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This is not explicitly Queliot, but is written with the continuation of Queliot in mind.  
> No Beta Reader.

Q paused in front of the sparse white doorway leading on. Leading beyond. He glanced back at Penny, torn and uncertain. Arms crossed, Penny raised an eyebrow that said "Well? Get a move on!"

The look wasn't enough to push Quentin on. Penny would have to resort to words.

"You have your pass. What else are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

"I'm not-" Quentin struggled with the words he was looking for to express the thing that was holding him back. "Ah, no. I can't. I can't go. I'm not done."

"They all say that you know," Penny told him, eyes raising to the ceiling of death's final passage. "Everyone thinks they can fight this. That they're special. Quentin, you've lived a full life. Two full lives. What makes you think you're so important you get another one?"

"I'm not-" Quentin shook his head, eyes darting between Death's Gate, and Penny. He took a step closer to the traveler. Closer to life. "I can't go. I'm not done."  
Penny made to interrupt and Quentin cut him off, pacing in the small space between the traveler and the passage. 

"No, listen- I. Okay so when I first started at Brakebills Dean Fogg made me promise to give up my medication. He told me that if I wanted to learn magic, he said - He said I didn't need anything else and that my depression came from not fitting in because deep down I knew I was different, but that's not - that's not true is it? My dad died because magic couldn't cure what was a part of him and this? This has always been a part of me. Magic can't cure who I am, and god most of the time it made me worse, made everything -. Anyway, Magic comes from pain, and nothing is more painful than hating yourself so much you want yourself dead.

"Jesus, Quentin -"

"No, I'm not done!"

"I don't have all day!" Penny threw his hands in the air and Quentin glared at him. "Sorry. Sorry, There's just something about you that makes me feel like, I don't know. The old me. You always were able to get under my skin, weren't you? But really, can you get to the point?"

"Sure." Quentin said, shoving his hands in his armpits and forcing himself to hold still, to look Penny in the eye. "Sure, yeah, I - Okay so depression isn't something you cure. It's something you fight. You fight every day by choosing to live. By picking something to live for and then picking something else if that falls through. Over and over again, you keep fighting. That's what I'm doing right now. I know I made a sacrifice, I mean, yeah in the moment I did it because I didn't see another way and I wanted to make that choice for them and -"

Quentin grew taller as he spoke.

"And Now? Now I'm making a choice for me."

"You're dead, dude. There is no choice for you! Even if you could, you don't even have a body to go back to."

"Neither did you, and you didn't just give up, you -"

"I kept fighting for a while, yeah. I did. But that's different. I'm a traveler and -"

"And I'm a magician. Penny, you're going to have to kill me yourself because I'm not done yet. I'm not done fighting for my life."

A look crossed Penny's face, something mixed between consideration and constipation. Then, he began to pace.

"Fine, okay. Say I let you stay in the library- Except they would never allow it. There aren't that many librarians left but they're still sticklers for the rules and -"

"Screw the rules. I don't care how you explain it to your superiors. I've sacrificed. I've quested. I've done everything to bring back -"

"Yeah, yeah. Save it. I've read your book. As for my superiors, well. Ha." A look of delight filled Penny, as though he'd been burying himself for so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like to hope. "That's right, I'm actually the highest ranking librarian in The Underworld right now, aren't I? That won't last long, though. And sure, do I want to pull one over on the dicks that tricked me into eternal servitude? Of course, I do. But you don't have a body. I mean, I could - but you wouldn't -

"I would," Quentin interjected. "I would do whatever it took."

"Of course you would." Penny finally stopped pacing and turned to point at Quentin with a stern look. "If I do this you can never tell anyone. Ever. I'm not stupid enough to think I can keep you away from the others, from Fillory, but you'll be taking a new body and you won't be you. You can't tell anyone. Not a soul."

"I won't -"

"I'm serious. I have your book. I get a hint of a whisper of the truth of this and I'll repo your ass so fast you'll be standing right back here wondering if any of it even happened. Not a word, to anyone."

"Not a word, Penny. I swear on my life."

Penny nodded, satisfied with Quentin's promise, and then gestured back towards his office. Quentin led the way and Penny glanced around before waving his hands, doppelgangers of the two men taking their places and playing out the ending that he'd read about all those months before.

And by sunrise, a new student had joined Brakebills Acadamy. A self-taught hedge, Kafele Ini-Herit had needed a lot of persuasive power to convince Dean Fogg to let him attend, but the young Indian man had known all the right things to say and all the sad looks to give so that the Dean, and later Margo and Eliot and Fen, were eating out of the palm of his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> So Kafele means "Would Die For" and Ini-Herit means "He who brings back the distant one." That's literally the only reason behind these name choices. 
> 
> If everyone is dying for a continuation of this I can throw together a chapter or two of what Kafele gets up to and how he ultimately ends up back in Quentin's body (something that wouldn't happen on the show because Jason has other things to do), but ultimately I think this would be an ideal way for the writers to fix their blunder and also show the themes that they had led up to all season.


End file.
